CONWAY, Ark. (June 2, 2014) – Retired Hendrix politics &
international relations professor Dr. Ian King’s debut novel The Last Eucharist was recently published and is available in
paperback here.
Born a British citizen in 1951, King served five years in
the Royal Navy as a hydrographic surveyor. He became a naturalized United
States citizen in 1998. King retired as a distinguished professor of politics
and international relations in 2011, after 26 years at Hendrix. His debut novel
emerged from a creative writing class exercise and grew to become a
philosophical statement about the human condition.
From
Amazon.com
“The Last Eucharist has as its beginning an image of a man, both legs
amputated just below the knee, doing a headstand on the sidewalk outside of a
cinema. Looking at the world through satirical eyes, this book shines a bright
light on human foibles. And author Ian T. King’s sarcastic humor makes unusual
sense out of a chaotic world in the same vein as satirists such as George
Saunders and Joseph Heller. Navigating the line between illusion and reality,
the plot flows from the scene at the Palais de Théâtre in Jackrabbit, Arizona,
toward a chance meeting between Thomas, the weathered old cripple, and a pretty
twenty-something named Sally Graham. It continues moving forward, heading to
Saigon, Vietnam, where serendipity again works its magic, drawing in a street
urchin named Tomaso, another boy named Bao, and Thomas’s childhood friend Billy
Smith. From the waywardness and confusion of the plot line, a strange logic
emerges. Ultimately, The Last
Eucharist is a story about
the enigmatic nature of human existence—a philosophical statement about the
human condition. It’s a unique statement, expressed through a wonderfully
original work.”
Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in
engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the sixth consecutive year,
Hendrix was named one of the country’s “Up and Coming” liberal arts colleges by
U.S. News and World Report. Hendrix is featured in the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change
the Way You Think about Colleges,
as well as the 2014 Princeton Review’s The Best 378 Colleges, Forbes magazine's list of America's Top Colleges, and
the 2014 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United
Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.